Saturday, 14 February 2015

there's comfort in the silence of a living room

Happy v-day everyone!! I celebrated the occasion this morning when I reread my favourite chapter from Wuthering Heights and cried. Thank God for the half term. Last night I saw Palma Violets at a local venue and it was without a doubt the best night of 2015 so far. The venue was so intimate and we were right against the stage. Afterwards we went outside and talked/got photos with Chilli Jesson. The whole night was like a dream and I'm so sad to have woken up from it, but half term is looking good and now that New York Fashion Week is in full swing there's always something to look forward to, because yes I voraciously look forward to hibernating and reading style.com obsessively.

I've finally got on the ball with regards to my new year's resolution to journal more. Now I do it non-stop in the evenings and at weekends. My goal is to finish this journal by the end of the month, but realistically at least by the end of March. This is probably the last month where I have enough spare time to journal lots before exam revision starts setting in heavily.

What Kind of Man Roundtable

The new Florence + the Machine song/video is staggeringly beautiful. Antonio and I had a in-depth discussion of its meanings on Thursday. You can read what we thought below:

SOPHIE: The dialogue was so great and set a really dreamy vibe for the rest of the video.

ANTONIO: The wet hair and like symbolism in the hands was so Florence and the nudity and sexuality was so raunchy for Florence but then again it's basically all the stuff she sings about just now it's on screen for the first time.

S: Yeah. Compared to her other videos it seemed a lot more in line with the content and imagery of her songs. It was darker but still dreamlike and sort of surreal.

A: That dialogue in the car at the beginning is kind of pretentious but I LOVE that first moment when it's all light green, kind of like her dress on the cover of Lungs, and the fluidity and normality of the convo.

S: The dialogue is kind of pretentious and at times unrealistic but I like that because they're talking about dreams at at the same time the way they talk is dreamlike because it doesn't quite seem like a real conversation.

A: Yeah and then smashing that in with clips of her gasping for air in the bath and those horrific like Satan hands all over her at the dinner table. It's just an interesting follow up from Lover to Lover which was her last major video. That was so kind of faded American Dream-esque and realistic which is kind of less in touch with the supernatural elements to her music, but this video seemed to continue from that but take it to this strange, animalistic place.

S: I really loved the clips of her gasping for air. The car bit was kind of like Lover to Lover, but the scenes that cut it up made it much more multilayered and built up a feeling of tension.

A: Yeah. Then that weird satanistic/gang rape bit was really quite scary. To clarify, there is no rape. Also, at the end of Lover to Lover she tries to drown in the ocean and so connecting that with her being saved in this video (I think she's even wearing the same dress) is really invested. Also, the dungeon scenes added to the strangeness and that sense of them all observing her, especially those who are sitting around her.

S: Yeah, and the built up to the kind of satanic scenes made it much more gripping and added a narrative that the lyrics don't necessarily cover without the images, so there are lots of interpretations to be made. The tense parts made it seem as though they were scenes from the dream that made her look sad that they were talking about in the car and probably symbolises her subconscious thoughts about their relationship that come to life in her dreams.

A: Yeah, I get you. I thought it was more like this strange merging of past and present. It's scary having all these men around her and pushing her around in the room, and yet, at the same time it's like they're trying to control this animal as she's thrashing around between them and it's almost like she's fighting them.

S: I think that creates this notion of losing control and like you said about it seeming animalistic, it's like how anyone could behave like that and to be able to do so would be to be free, but everyone would always be trying to repress and restrain you and fight you. Which bit would be the past and which bit is the present?

A: The past is the happier time. Maybe the being picked up by the woman is the further past, before she met the guy in the car. Then all the satanic stuff is this culmination of all the past moments brought into this nightmarish daydream, like her life flashing before her eyes as she crawls out of the car and then this final blow to the relationship comes in the form of the car which hits them.

S: The sunniness of the car scene seems very nostalgic when the rest of the video is so dark. It's interesting that it's the bad stuff that flashes before her eyes but that could link to the idea of suffering bringing you closer to someone.

A: And she has to literally haul her body across the ground, crawling, possibly physically removing herself from the car AND the relationship.She remembers all the bad stuff that happened between them because there was so much more intense emotion and passion in it. Also, the car could symbolise their relationship being happy at the beginning, and then they move from the drivers seat to the back seat like they're losing control. Also, the bit about how you're closer to someone if you go through suffering than if you're content together definitely rings some truth. All the men seem to represent the different ways this guy treats her. Within the crowd in the house she's pushing them all and then she finds his face and holds him. Then there's the shots of her on the mattress being watched by all the men and then just the two of them making love/trying to kill each other.

S: She seems to be fighting or struggling the whole way through the video which could signify a mental sense of striving for more in the relationship and in life in general that she lets free in the animalistic scenes but almost denies when they're in the car and brushes over the fact that she looked sad in her sleep.

A: And how she says that they're in the eye of the storm but she can feel it all around them. In his own dialogue he hardly seems as deep and intense as her.

S: Yeah, and I think that's why she has all these feelings that she can't express to him because he wouldn't really get it.

A: In all the sexual scenes she seems like the dominant one which reflects that idea of her being more in control in the relationship.

S: Can I just say that his hands and arms were so hot omg.

A: Hahahahahaha I didn't notice for once.

Favourites Looks From NYFW So Far...
I am still waiting for a collection to really blow me away. I always find New York Fashion Week lacking in creativity and innovativeness, but I can't wait for Rodarte and will watch the Alexander Wang live feed tonight. I'll write full reviews soon, but this post is already very text heavy.

3 comments:

I really want to start journaling a lot more too but I really struggle to remind myself to get at it every night.. Usually by 7pm i'm just so damn exhausted that I don't have the strength to write a thing, let alone start drawing haha ! Yours looks beautiful !

ABOUT

Hi I’m Sophie. I’m a writer and freelance fashion journalist based in Kent/London. I keep this blog to document my interests and various style inspirations. You can contact me at sophie.wilson09a@hotmail.co.uk